The city of Chula Vista has been ordered to release dozens of police drone videos, and to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees and other costs related to years of litigation over officials’ refusal to turn over even the most routine aerial images.
Judge Timothy Taylor ordered the city to comply with a California Public Records Act request filed by Arturo Castañares, the La Prensa San Diego publisher who first requested the video archives more than four years ago.
“The public interest served by withholding the records clearly does not outweigh the public interest served by disclosure,” the judge wrote about one of the disputed videos as part of an 18-page ruling from late last week.
Chula Vista was one of the first cities to employ the aerial-surveillance technology, and law enforcement agencies and others have been monitoring the case to help guide their policies in managing the data they collect.
The city’s police and elected leaders refused to release any of the drone videos Castañares sought in April 2021. His initial request included footage taken during the prior month.
Chula Vista argued that the drone footage was exempt from public release under several different rules, including that they were evidence in police investigations and their release would violate personal privacy rights.
The city litigated the claim all the way to the California Supreme Court, which last year refused to hear the case.
The high court’s refusal to take up the cause left intact an appellate court ruling that the exemptions claimed by Chula Vista were overly broad. The appeals court returned the case to the San Diego Superior Court for Taylor to determine which tapes must be released.
In total, Taylor watched 44 videos in chambers that were recorded by police drones in March 2021 — a sampling of the hundreds of tapes that fell within the date range initially requested by Castañares.
Twenty-five of the disputed tapes must be publicly produced, Taylor ruled, including a handful with minor redactions such as blurred faces.
But city officials can reasonably withhold 17 videos because they could be considered evidence in an ongoing police investigation, the judge found. Two others were ruled non-responsive to the initial records request because they contained no content.
Castañares attorney Cory Briggs, who has won dozens of lawsuits against local governments that failed to comply with public-records and other rules, said the case should never have taken this much time and money.
“The ruling confirms what everyone except Chula Vista’s politicians, police chief and lawyers knew before the lawsuit was filed: Videos taken by police are subject to public review when not part of a bona fide investigation,” he said.
A spokesperson declined to discuss the decision or explain why Chula Vista has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the videos from public view.
“The city is evaluating the recent ruling, as well as its options, and will refrain from further comment at this time,” Adrianna Relph, a special projects and legislative manager in the City Manager’s Office, said in an email.
Chula Vista has a history of withholding public records or failing to post public documents on the city website.
The decision from Taylor came a month after he issued a tentative ruling that was largely similar to his final order. It recounts his view of dozens of videos and provides the first public or description of the withheld images.
Taylor divided the videos into separate categories, finding that many were not investigatory in nature at all and that others did not invade the privacy of people photographed by the overhead cameras.
On March 27, 2021, for example, a Chula Vista Police Department drone was dispatched to a call where an elderly man had fallen.
The city argued that releasing the tape would violate the man’s privacy, but the judge disagreed. He described the view from above the scene, an overflight of the San Diego Country Club and other landmarks on the way to the emergency scene.
“The fall evidently occurred quite close to the entrance to the store, as the subject is under an awning or overhang and only his legs are visible (clad in light tros),” the judge wrote. “At 14:35, the ambulance arrives and the drone returns to base.
“There is no possible privacy violation implicated, as only the subject’s legs can be visualized,” he added. “The city must turn over this video.”
In other videos, the judge determined that the material could be properly withheld.
Responding to a check requested earlier in March 2021 of a person not wearing COVID-19 protective gear, a drone es above shopping malls, a school and apartments as the operator zooms in with the camera to get close-up images.
“Because of the evidence of specifically targeted search for the person habitually refusing to wear mask at bus stops and thereby creating disturbance, the court concludes this deployment was investigatory in nature and not bulk data collection. Petitioner is entitled to no relief as to this video,” Taylor wrote.
David Loy of the First Amendment Coalition has been following the Chula Vista police drone case for years. He said the judge appears to have done a diligent analysis of what videos may be withheld from public inspection and which must be released.
“You cannot just categorically deny disclosure,” he said. “Not every drone video is made for the purpose of investigating crime.”
The First Amendment Coalition legal director said he was not sold on the idea that the city should protect the identity of people in public captured on the drone footage by blurring their faces.
“I’m not 100 percent sure that there is always an expectation of privacy just because someone’s face is in a video,” Loy said.
For his part, Castañares said he was grateful that his four-year legal quest is ending.
“This case is a big step toward more access to public records, which have been hidden by police agencies for many years,” he said. “Police have used a broad investigative-records exemption to improperly shield records which are not connected to investigations.”
It’s not clear how much Chula Vista invested in its defense of withholding the drone footage. City officials would not say.
Chula Vista taxpayers also are liable for the legal fees incurred by Briggs over four years of litigation. He said the amount of his fees and expenses have not yet been tabulated, but he expects they will exceed $500,000.
